On and On and Forever
by Carpetbag
Summary: Vague and sad and utterly, utterly in love SLASH
1. In the Wilting Air

On and On and Forever  
  
Carpetbag  
  
Installation: 1  
  
Disclaimer: I wish I could just sit and watch Harry and Draco make kissy faces all day, but sadly they are not here.  
  
A/N: Reviews are welcome, even flames, because then I get to print them out and burn them while I cackle maniacally and dance naked under the full moon.  
  
Draco traced Harry's smile with his eyes. He saw warmth there, and something he hadn't seen for a very long time, and couldn't identify. Harry's lips were full and wet, and each moment brought the glistening lips closer, further apart. Each word was a symphony Draco could almost hear. His mouth was a hole of indecency, Draco decided vaguely. There was something irresistible about Harry, and it wasn't just his smile.  
  
There is a time when it's hard to admit you're beautiful. You deny and cower in shame at the thought that you could ever be better than anyone else, afraid a little ego might hurt. Most people get past that, but Draco was a special case. In a life full of ugliness, it was hard for him to find anything in his little world beautiful. His parents weren't beautiful; they were too cold and too hard. His girlfriend wasn't beautiful; she was too soft, too malleable, and too stupid. His friends weren't beautiful; in fact, they were probably the worst of the bunch; too deceitful, too filled with hate, too /ugly/.  
  
So here he was, staring at Potter, who was still a boy, and yet more a man than he himself would ever be, and wondering what it would be like to kiss those soft, pliable, beautiful lips. What is would be like to link together and stay. Which was what he wanted most in the world. To stay. To be safe. To keep it together for once in his god-awful life. He knew it would be beautiful.  
  
He felt rather than saw Harry's eyes flicker over to him; there was no way for him to focus on anything more that his luscious red lips, and he wouldn't have wanted to anyway. Draco knew what Harry would see in his eyes, the unadulterated lust and longing that flushed his cheeks and made him hard. It was all there in that one moment. Gone the next.  
  
Harry's eyes flitted away, and then he was off, dismissing his friends and making a slow, controlled escape toward the exit. Without Harry, the great hall seemed so very empty. So very small.  
  
***  
  
He saw Harry between classes; it was easier now that so many students had fled. But not Draco. He had begged his father to stay, his father who had wanted him at Durmstrang, who had wanted him studying the dark arts. He didn't want to study anything but Harry.  
  
And study Harry he did. Every moment he was in Harry's presence he watched, studied, knew. But knowing and doing are two different things, no matter that he knew the rhythm and sound of Harry's footsteps and the depth of his eyes. No matter that nothing would ever come of it.  
  
Slytherin and Gryffindor now only had one class together, but Potions was still his best subject. Studying potions and ingredients is so much more effective when one is alone in one's room in the middle of the night after everything else has been done, he reasoned.  
  
There was no reason to this obsession. Only lust and something deeper. Something fuller. Something that left him cold and alone after jerking off to the tune of *'Harry!'* every night. But there was no escaping. There wasn't even a will to escape the bone-jarring certainty of this thing.  
  
It was his face. His eyes and mouth and nose and ears and scar, and the way his hair was always disastrously mussed. It was the way his hands gripped his broom and it was the exhilaration on his face when he caught the snitch. It was tensed muscles and splotches of red on his cheeks. It was the stroke of a quill across parchment. It was more than hate, so much more and it dug into him and ate at him and pinched his heart when their eyes met. Whenever Draco though Harry /might/ be looking his way.  
  
Draco knew. He knew everything there was to know about Harry, and yet he knew nothing. The only thing Harry had ever told him was that he hated Draco, and that he was scum, the vilest dirt on the bottom of the vilest boot on the earth and there was nothing he could do about it. He even halfway believed it. He halfway believed everything. He halfway believed he was in love with Harry Potter.  
  
***  
  
/Stop staring at me/  
  
Was all it said. The note delivered by a school owl, Harry decidedly /not/ looking at his reaction. But every stroke Harry made with his quill could not disguise his own script. It was messy and close to illegible if he didn't take the time to write slowly, but it was so distinctly his that Draco could not help but smile. Although inside he was screaming at himself.  
  
Why did he have to be so obvious? Why did he stare with all his might at his always-retreating form? Why did his heart clench when Harry scowled at him, or when his wand was drawn against him? Why did he sometimes cry at night? Why did he do any of it? Why-Why-Why? WHY?  
  
Of course. The answer was right there, plain and simple, in his face, before his eyes. It was Harry Potter. The Most Beautiful Boy Who Ever Lived. He was the only one who ever looked at Draco and saw him for what he truly was. Draco knew what Harry saw when he looked at him. He saw someone human. He knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt. He also saw a failure.  
  
And he had failed. Draco had failed to be a good friend, a good son, a good boyfriend, a good /anything/. Draco had even failed at being Harry's enemy. There was only apathy in Potter's gaze now, and slight annoyance.  
  
Draco caught his eyes from across the hall and raised his eyebrow ever so slightly, smirking slightly. This was the show, this was the game. Where he pretended he was the cool and aloof villain, and Harry pretended he was the valiant, unswerving hero. It was unsettling how hard it was to fall into that role after what seemed like so little time.  
  
***  
  
Draco did stop looking. He stopped watching the curl of hair at the nape of Harry's neck. He stopped watching the beads of sweat that rolled down Harry's arms on particularly hot days. He stopped following him nonchalantly in the halls and around the grounds. *'Oh Draco, I was so worried about you! What came over you these past few months?'* And for Draco it was easy to answer *'nothing.'* It was easy to say he had been preoccupied with something his father had asked him to do. It was /too easy/. And it hurt that he could slide between love and detachment so quickly.  
  
Unbeknownst to Harry, Draco had a photograph of him. In it he stretched languidly, his long-sleeved shirt riding up to expose a hard, tanned stomach. Every so often he reaches down and rubs his belly and chest underneath his shirt, pulling it higher on his abdomen and giving Draco a tantalizing view.  
  
This photo Harry was Draco's only relief in a day without that face. Virtually every day was a day without Harry already; their schedules never seemed to coincide after Draco had stopped arranging such occurrences. And it was a lonely life without that perfect smile, that melancholy air that Potter brought with him wherever he went. But such is the pain of unrequited lust.  
  
***  
  
Draco was a naturally suspicious person, but when Harry started showing up at his favourite haunts more often he could barely conceal his glee. Here was the object of his affections and it wasn't even his fault! It was all he could do to avert his eyes and pay attention to his friends. Pay attention to Pansy. Pay attention to anyone but /him/.  
  
But it didn't take long before he felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise. He would turn but no one was watching him. But someone was. He started to feel the power of that gaze on his back everywhere he went, but everywhere he went there was no one looking at him. It was everywhere and everything, sometimes an overbearing presence, sometimes a soft touch. It was familiar and confusing all at the same time.  
  
But eventually the gaze became part of him, melted into the way he acted and the things he felt. It was an almost constant presence, ignored when it was there but mourned when it was gone. And then it disappeared.  
  
Draco heard a rumour that Potter was in the hospital wing. He had been badly hurt in an attempt to go flying in secrecy. No one had been able to find him until some Ravenclaw had gone out to set up the pitch for Quidditch practice the next morning.  
  
***  
  
Harry was pale. His lips lacked colour and they looked painfully dry. He was almost alone in the entire wing. There was one other occupant, a Hufflepuff third year who moaned a lot and threw up occasionally. Thankfully Draco could neither see nor smell the terrible retching.  
  
It was not his fault.  
  
It was not his fault. A mantra that would play in his head for years to come as he remembered that one long, tapered finger come to rest at the base of the other boy's ear. He couldn't /help/ but run it down Harry's cool, sickly face. He couldn't /help/ but stroke Harry's hand, couldn't /help/ but lean in. Closer, closer, closer. Closer. It was barely a touch, /just barely there/. But it was enough.  
  
*'Malfoy?'* Came the groggy reply to Draco's wordless gesture, and he was off. Hoping against all hope that Harry wouldn't remember. Wouldn't know. Because he couldn't know. /Couldn't know/. Hoping against all hope that Harry forgot all about that one, tiny, perfect little kiss.  
  
But there was no helping it now. There was nothing he could do to ignore it, or erase that memory from his mind, indeed, nothing he would want to do. He had kissed Harry Potter! Harry Potter! His heart soared with the knowledge and danced, leapt for joy! It was that one memory that would keep him sane, stable, believable.  
  
So there it was. All he needed to go on with his life. Finally. No matter that the stirring in his groin only increased when Harry was finally back at breakfast after his brief absence. He had been awarded three weeks' detentions, Draco knew, for flying when he had been expressly forbidden to do so. Especially so late at night. Draco blinked tears away in one confusingly emotional moment as he thought /what if he had died/.  
  
But Harry was the Boy Who Lived. Harry could never die.  
  
***  
  
Of course Draco had detention too. He couldn't have helped it if he'd tried, so preoccupied he had been in agonizing over the curve or Harry's back that even Snape had to take points off and punish him. *'You don't know what you're doing, boy.'* The professor had said in a furious whisper after class. *'Don't be a fool.'*  
  
But Draco loved it. Loved being a fool, especially for Harry. Especially in detention when they were polishing trophies in the trophy room. Especially when Harry looked so edible in his school uniform. Robe and cardigan off, shirttails un-tucked, buttons halfway undone from the top, sleeves rolled. And in the sweltering heat Draco could excuse the same manner of dress.  
  
There was polishing oil everywhere. It stank to high heaven and was making Draco dizzy and a little giddy. He saw Harry stumble momentarily while getting a particularly high trophy down from the shelf and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't dare rub them for fear of getting oil in his eyes, but he managed to swipe the sweat off his forehead with his upper sleeve.  
  
Suddenly there was that penetrating gaze upon him. The one that had been missing. Left him lonely, and alone again. It was Potter.  
  
Draco mimicked his photo of Harry for a moment with a luxurious stretch and yawn and the blinked owlishly.  
  
The eyes were too close for comfort-not close enough. Almost directly in front of him. Luminous and Green. True Green. The pupils were dilated and the lids were low, and the lashes fluttered uncertainly. There was a ghost of a hand on his forearm and then there was that bliss that only ever comes of a perfect union.  
  
Slow. Steady. Soft. Sweet. And then a tongue that darts cautiously into Draco's mouth and he takes over.  
  
There was no sharing of power, no diplomatic duty. There was a brief struggle that left Draco on top and in charge, and he ran with it. Hands on cloth, under cloth, tearing cloth, throwing cloth. Grinding. Urgency. Wet kisses down the jaw, neck, chest. And then. . .*'Why?'* . . .*'How?'* Without further explanation.  
  
*'It was. . .'* He panted into Draco's mouth. *'The only thing I ever asked you to do-aah-that you actually did.'* They flipped. *'I started think about why.'*  
  
*'You didn't ask me for much. . . I could have given a lot more.'*  
  
*'I know.'*  
  
Hands, feet, bodies entwined. Tongues. Thrusting, sliding, tasting bitter polishing oil on slippery skin. Emptiness fading. Ache receding. Hearts breaking and mending. On and on and forever.  
  
To Be Continued 


	2. Surprise surprise

On and On and Forever

Carpetbag

Installation: 2

Disclaimer: Sometimes I wonder what JK Rowling has Draco and Harry do when she's not using them in the book...

Surprise Surprise

Draco watched him. He watched Harry flip hair out of his eyes or dip a quill in the pot of blue ink.

It was sweltering. The late May heat was new and fresh and marking the beginning of summer, if not the holidays. The sun dipped low on the horizon, and the sky darkened, and they were both waiting for the chill the night air was sure to bring. The spring had been unusually hot. Hot in more ways that one, Draco liked to joke, unsmiling but pleased.

What cares have we? What fervent hopes that bend and sway in heaven's breezes, but never break? None, says Harry. None.

And they watched the flaccid sun go down, lingering, pausing to expel another burst of hot wind before slipping away under cover of night. It is rebellion, always rebellion that drives Harry Potter. Draco learned this the hard way, but at least he learned it. Far better to know the cause of your own demise, he once read, than to quiver and shake in the unknowing.

So Draco savoured the sunset as he would a sweet wine, smooth and calm and potent. And then the moon rose up from its murky darkness and unleashed its sweet praises on man's hearts. For the romantic and the cynic alike, the moon was a life within itself.

In the lingering gloom of the tower in which they sat, they exchanged furtive touches, a brush on the knee, a ghost of a kiss. As if the stars were watching, whispering. /Look at them/ they said to one another, /Watch them lie and cheat and hide and. . . Love/

But there were words unspoken between the two, never to be spoken to each other or anyone else. Because it was best left to wonder. Because neither really wants to know.

Because it is easier to kill uncertainty that it is to kill love.

There were no words that night, or righteous anger, or bitter accusations. There was very little in the way of thought.

The stars glinted sharply like seventy million mouth waiting to gobble them up were they not careful. So they were careful, and quiet.

Bodies, sweat-slicked from the day not facing the puffs of cold air that made them shiver and draw closer to one another. Arms wrapped comfortably and legs curled appropriately. And there they sat. In the window. Harry with his parchment and Draco with his dreams.

Draco had long since admitted to himself the limitations of the relationship. There was no worry or regret, at least not yet. But there was a sombre pall hanging over them like a heavy blanket. Harry, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to make light of the closing school year and the fact that at the end of it. . .

Draco had no plans to return to his home. He knew to openly defy his father was suicide, and yet to comply would be murder, so his only choice was to disappear. 'I hear Voldemort's not all that big in China' He would tell Harry sometimes, to get a rise. All Harry ever did was look away. He refused to acknowledge the end of it all, and he certainly couldn't follow Draco wherever he went. The Boy Who Lived was needed, even if Harry Potter was not.

Sickening though it may be, Draco felt there were a lot of positive things about leaving, even if no one could think of any besides the token 'living' thing. For example, there was the idea of brushing up on his languages, meeting new people, learning about another culture. Of course there were all very fine and good when he wasn't looking at Harry, or thinking about Harry, or speaking to Harry. So, he obviously never thought about these things.

Love, if one could call it that, had a strange effect on Draco. Love made Draco sick. If it wasn't one thing it was another, and his frequent trips to madam Pomfrey had her shaking her head in wonder. She couldn't explain his constant coughs and colds and fevers. Of course, Draco knew why he was sick. It was a constant focus of his energies onto Harry, whose energies weren't constantly focussed on him. It was draining, but it was also a sacrifice he was willing to make.

If love had bonded him to any other soul, Draco felt that it would have been wasted, for never before had he been able to help as much as he did without anyone knowing. There would have been no need for him to give himself so completely to anyone but Harry.

And it was all about need, too, wasn't it? Need and want and that strange desperate dragging and driving of time that had been crushing only the tallest of them for a very long time. Now it was bending to reach the smaller, more insignificant being, and there was a need for tall people. Draco had always known that Harry was tall, and with Draco's own added strength he hoped Harry could cast off the shroud that threatened the wizarding world.

One afternoon (the bitter spring kind where the slushy ground soaks your pants up to the knees and the wind blows you so hard and so cold you think your nose and ears are going to freeze and drop off), Draco couldn't find Harry.

Draco looked in Harry's room (discreetly), he looked in the great hall He wandered the hallways and trudged up to the quidditch field. He peered through the smoke-smudged windows of Hagrid's hut and climbed to the highest room in the tallest tower of Hogwarts. He searched all throughout the school, but Harry was nowhere. After waffling between going to Dumbledore or not he decided it was important enough.

Of course it figured that the minute he reached the corridor of the headmaster's office Harry emerged from behind the large stone gargoyle. Harry almost immediately caught his eyes, and the panicked expression within them, and shook his head. Leave it, Harry was saying with his eyes held expressionless and level with Draco's own. Satisfied with Harry's safety Draco retreated, but not before seeing another figure leave the office.

Severus Snape. Come along, Potter. You know the product of your inattention last year, so let's make this as painless as possible.

Painless? What was going on? But Draco did not follow them. Did not try to find out exactly what it was that had shaken Harry so. Instead, he went to his room and lay on his bed and stared at nothing, mind utterly blank.

When Harry found Draco that night he refused to talk about what had happened between himself and Snape. He simply curled into Draco's arms and shook with something akin to shock. Neither spoke that night, choosing to lie still on Draco's bed until morning.

Somewhere between the witching hour and the first light of dawn Draco closed his eyes and focussed on Harry. It could have been minutes or hours or days that he spent gently sending pacifying energy through a small shivering boy, but at dawn Harry raised his head and gently unpeeled Draco's arms from around him while Draco pretended to sleep peacefully.

I know what you're doing, Draco. I'm not the Boy who Lived anymore. Harry murmured, thumb tracing Draco's slack lips. I'm the Boy who Loved.

He left in a whisper of invisibility cloak.

Draco slowly opened his pale eyes and drew in a shaky breath. He felt the burning heat of tears collect behind his eyes and squeezed them shut. And then he rolled over and tried desperately not to give up.


End file.
